


among the trees of his wood

by InfiniteCalm



Category: Grantchester (TV)
Genre: Confessions of love, Episode s04e01, M/M, brief description of child abuse, daniel's lovely cottage, oh i think we can read between the lines, tastefully implied sex, this is much happier than that, what did leonard do?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22297975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteCalm/pseuds/InfiniteCalm
Summary: The Vicarage is full, and so Leonard heads to Daniel's cottage.
Relationships: Leonard Finch/Daniel Marlowe
Comments: 13
Kudos: 43





	among the trees of his wood

**Author's Note:**

> CW: brief mentions of physical child abuse. See end notes for spoilery in-depth warnings.  
> These two! They make me crazy!! I wrote this in four hours! I start every new episode with a deep sense of dread that they'll split, and end each with a wild joy!!!  
> I'm assuming everyone read between the lines in s04e01, but hey, here's those gaps filled in for you!!
> 
> title inspired by Song of Solomon 2:3 "As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste."

He leaves directly after dinner. It’s very rude of him, yes, he knows. He doesn’t care, and when he realises he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care about that, either. He’s not apathetic about the situation- he hopes everything is alright, and that they’re not too overwhelmed (and that the Americans won’t be expecting things that Americans tend to expect- good coffee, strange bacon, service with a smile), but he just does not care whether they think he’s odd or not. He’s tired, it’s been a very full day, and he wants to see Daniel. The thought of him alone is enough to ease some of the tension in his shoulders.

It’s a bad day, when even he can tell that his shoulders are tenser than usual.

So he says ta to Mrs C for the dinner (the Americans didn’t eat much of it, but then they are grieving- there was no need for her to be so sniffy about it), packs his overnight bag, and hurries out the door. Dickens pines mournfully after him. Sorry, dog, he thinks. I’m taking the night off. No collar, no Elvis, no working on sermons, no paperwork. Just me, and just Daniel.

Daniel’s not expecting him, and Leonard remembers the last time he came barrelling up along the river sans notice, but it’s all different now (or he hopes) and he takes in the Summer dusk and _doesn’t_ think about everything that has to be done tomorrow.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Whatever wrongheaded notion Sidney has, the village fête is one of their most important and busiest days, and it’s so soon… the bunting is probably moth-eaten, he’s not checked the impartiality of the grand jury for the cake championship, they really have to sort out the microphone system… it’s all got away from him.

But that’s alright, that’s alright, that’s just fine… take it easier. He breathes deeply and waves at a large group of children who are up past their bedtime, covered in dirt and god-knows-what.

“Hello, Mr Finch!” They shout, and he- though demonstrably not very good with children, is pleased enough that they know him by name, and are neither shouting hurtful things, or trying to get away with a crime of some sort.

And by the time he’s finished that thought, the river walk is in view, and with it the welcome foliage of Daniel’s garden in the Summer. Nobody else around to see him slip through the freshly-painted gate, up the gravel path, to the door.

He doesn’t let himself get cold feet; he won’t turn back now, it’s been such a day, Daniel said it was an open invitation, Daniel _likes_ him, Daniel- Leonard shakes himself and knocks on the door. It’s harder than he thought it would be not to run away. Daniel would put it down to kids playing knocky-nine-doors. God, he could be _busy,_ he could be doing something- Leonard forces himself to relax, rolling his shoulders back. His neck clicks ominously.

The door opens. Daniel, shirtsleeves rolled up, in socks, looks up at him with that smile, that wide open, happy smile, and Leonard thinks- if this is what I get for the risks I take, then it’s all worth it. All worth it. It would almost be worth it to see him look at somebody _else_ like that. But it’s _me._

“Hello, Mr Finch!” he says, and opens the door out wide, so that Leonard can step clean over the threshold.

They close the door.

“Hello, Daniel,” he says, and steps into the hands waiting for him.

Daniel brings him into the kitchen and sits him down at the table and makes him explain everything, pours out a very dry white wine and perches on the chair opposite him, twirling his foot around absentmindedly as he listens.

Daniel is the one who listens. Who could ever think anything malicious of this man?

“That sounds awful, Len,” he says. “You must have been so frightened. I’d have lost it completely.”

Leonard is about to move past it- he’s not the dead man, after all, and nobody was shouting shocking things at him (this time at least)- but then he reflects on it, and it’s Daniel who’s asking, not Geordie or Sidney.

“I was, rather,” he says tremulously. “I thought I was going to die.”

Daniel makes a sympathetic noise and drags his kitchen chair over to Leonard, so he can put his arm around him. Leonard tucks his head into Daniel’s chest and lets Daniel rub meaningless circles into his back, until his breathing is back under control.

“I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“All I could think of was you,” Leonard says quiet. “And that trip to the- how stupid, I was thinking that we’d never go to the pictures together again. How’s that for sentimentality.”

Daniel makes the noise again, but a bit louder this time, and tightens his grip.

“I’m telling you now,” he says quietly, and Leonard feels his voice vibrate through his chest. “that would break my heart, Leonard, if we never got to do that again.”

“And not because the last one we went to see was as dreadful as it was?”

“I- yes, of course, that’s the reason. That’s the only reason.”

Leonard laughs and then stretches as much as he can without displacing Daniel’s arms too much.

“Let’s go to the sofa,” Daniel says, “more comfortable.”

“Let’s.” Leonard says.

He loves to lie in Daniel’s lap- he loves to feel enclosed and warm, and Daniel’s absentminded hands stroking up and down his arm- like a cat, he fancies, a cat who is aware of how precious, how rare this all is. They take the wine in with them and put it down on the little table in front of the couch, but Leonard has no real desire to drink too much tonight, and by the looks of it, Daniel doesn’t either.

“By the way, you’re not in, right now. You’re out fishing, if anyone asks.”

“Where am I fishing?”

“I don’t know,” Leonard says. “You’re just out. Maybe you’re out with the owl and the pussycat. I liked that one, when I was a child.”

“What were you like as a child?” Daniel asks. This may be a stealth attempt to find out more about why Leonard doesn’t talk much about his family, but Leonard is very skilled at avoiding the topic except in hinting that it’s not a _good_ story.

“Bookish. Intolerably shy- oh, I can tell you’re surprised… the other children were sometimes a little harsh, but not as much as you’d expect. I used to go exploring on the fields with a girl- Carmel, she was called. Lovely girl. Married now. And what about you? Were you very good at cricket?”

“I was terrible at cricket. Good at football, though. My father was so proud, he used to tell all his clients about how many goals I’d scored and all that.”

“Mine was a hard man to please.”

“He was foolish.”

“He was very strong. Which I… experienced first-hand.”

He closes his eyes, because he doesn’t want to see what Daniel’s face looks like when he processes that information. It’s hard, it’s hard to get the words out- even in such an oblique way as all that. Daniel’s the first person to whom he ever even implied that part.

“Leonard, did he- hit you? More than the usual, I mean?”

“How much is usual?” Leonard laughs a little, but even he’s not encouraged by how it sounds. Bleak. It sounds very bleak.

“My Leonard.” Daniel says, and his face is so kind, so sad, looking down at him, smoothing his hair off his forehead. He had to be told, eventually, Leonard reasons. It would have been dishonest. What’s Leonard’s business is Daniel’s business now, and so- all cards laid out on the table. “My darling Len.”

“Well.” Leonard says. “There you go. You do know how to pick them, don’t you.”

Thoughtful silence.

“Could be worse. You could have been raised Catholic.”

“Mm. Purple’s not really my colour.”

“And I’m very glad you’re not celibate.”

Not that it would make much difference at this stage, Leonard thinks ruefully, fully aware that it is _his_ own stupid mouth which is incapable of just spitting out what he wants to say.

“Well.” Leonard says quietly, after a moment has passed. “That’s it, dearest.” He sits up, his back complaining, and sits cross-legged on the sofa, looks intently at his hands. “What you see is what you get, with me-” he cannot think of anything more damning about himself than that- “nothing but sad stories and- peculiarities.”

Daniel closes the space between them as soon as it opens. He rearranges his legs and leans forward, gripping Leonard’s knees.

“I’m _one_ of those peculiarities,” he says, “and what’s wrong with getting what I see? When I like it so very much?”

Leonard has no answer for that, none at all, and so all he can do is take one huge, shuddering breath, and kiss Daniel. The alternative is bursting into tears, and he’s making no promises on that front. He still might do that. But for now, this is better. This, kissing finally without feeling like he’s putting up some sort of front- that’s something. He never used to get the fuss- he’d kissed people before, and lips are lips, surely a woman’s weren’t that much different to a man’s. But now- now. Daffodils. He feels nothing so much as relief, that all the world wasn’t _wrong,_ that there could be this feeling, inside even himself. He feels almost prayerful. The poets, they had almost all of this soaring, but there was something missing, too, something lost slightly in the translation, some unnameable, old thing at the centre of him waking up, and shaking off the dust.

“I’m _not_ celibate,” he says, when they break apart, still breathless. Daniel looks askance, and then starts to laugh a little, and Leonard joins in. It is funny. He didn’t mean it to be, but then he isn’t sure what he _meant_ it to be at all. So they may as well laugh, it’s a joke, and he’s so happy. He’s so happy.

“Well, I haven’t made up the spare room, seeing as I’m on a fishing trip.” Daniel says.

“That’s true,” Leonard says.

“So we’re going to have to head to _my_ bedroom.”

“Well, if it’s necessary.”

“Oh,” Daniel says, with a bit of a glint in his eye, “I think it just _might_ be.”

They walk up the stairs with very measured steps.

Once they get to the bedroom- very tidy- is that a Liberty bedspread? Where on Earth did he get the cash for that? - Daniel, who has unbuttoned his shirt to “barely decent” standard, leans against the doorframe, like Marlon Brando.

“You have to tell me what you want,” he says.

“I don’t know anything about this,” Leonard replies. “You know that.”

“No, I mean- if it gets too much for you,” Daniel says. “Or if you change your mind, or if you don’t like something- you must let me know. I’d rather die than hurt you, and it’s- it’s not always easy in this situation, to know what you’re ready for.”

_Daniel, what happened to you._

“You are so good to me,” Leonard says, instead.

They kiss again- Daniel does something interesting with his leg, and Leonard ends up tugging on his hair, which he says he likes, and their trousers are altogether very uncomfortable now, so they disrobe- Leonard has never done this the full way down for _anyone_ before, not the doctor or anyone but suddenly it’s good; Daniel is looking at him like he’s some sort of miracle. And Daniel, himself, here- he can’t breathe, he’s so lovely. It makes him a little lightheaded.

They kiss again, and now it’s something else, on the bed, there’s so much of everything, but it’s just the two of them, and their breaths, and Daniel puts a hand on his chest and says “well”, just like that, “well”, and Leonard could just offer up any praise Heaven demanded of him then.

-

Afterwards (it’s an old house and they’re back in pyjamas- it’s not exactly Algiers, Daniel says, the Cambridgeshire June is still not much warmer than the Cambridgeshire March), Leonard faces Daniel who looks right back at him, and maybe it’s not the done thing to be so delighted about this, but they’ve done something absolutely lovely together, and if he’s enthusiastic about the cinema, he’ll damn well be enthusiastic about this too.

“Thank you,” he says, and Daniel does that concerned-but-happy expression (he wears his heart so openly on that face of his, in some obscene act of bravery).

“You don’t have to thank me for sex, Leonard,” he says, “it’s not exactly a hardship for me.”

“No, I meant- you were so patient, and careful- you didn’t have to be, but you were.”

Daniel’s hair is all mussed. Leonard can only _imagine_ what he himself looks like. Daniel’s eyes are fond, and he smiles.

“Oh, Leonard. Come here. No, come here.” Leonard scoots closer in the lamplight. “I love you.”

Leonard can’t speak. He leans his head on Daniel’s chest and relishes the warmth he finds there, like a freezing man finding shelter.

“I can hear your heart,” he says, which isn’t what he’s supposed to respond, but it’s the truest thing he can find at that precise moment.

Love is a grace, and the graces are much more his wheelhouse than Daniel’s.

“Does it sound alright, Doctor?”

“I love you too. Obviously.”

“Obviously, he says,” Daniel laughs.

“Well. Isn’t it?” Leonard asks. “I love you so _much,_ Daniel Marlowe.”

“I’m so glad,” Daniel says.

“And you love me.”

“Yes. I do.”

“Nobody’s told me that since Mum passed,” Leonard says. He means it as a stray observation, but the way Daniel goes all still means that he’s let slip something sad, again. Well.

Daniel gathers him up so that the back of his head is against Daniel’s lips, and his arms are around him, and he is squeezed into him tightly, legs entangled.

“You’re a real turn up for the books, Mr. Finch.”

“I’m a dreadful mess.”

“You’re _my_ dreadful mess.”

“Yes. As long as you’ll have me.”

-

They wake to the alarm before dawn, to a blue morning, still entangled, and sweaty.

Daniel heads down to the kitchen before Leonard can stir, boils a kettle, and stares out the window above the sink as the tea brews. He carries the mug up the stairs, and leans against the doorframe in his dressing gown, looking.

Len’s head is a contrast, dark curls against the pearly florals of the pillow covers. He’s fallen back asleep, and he looks so frightfully young, as relaxed as Daniel will ever see him. It’s a shame to wake him, but duty calls, as it always does. Daniel doesn’t want to send him back to that place, full of good intentions and secrets and people who don’t love anyone in a way that helps them. Still, if anyone can make the best of it…

“Morning, love,” he says.

“Well, good morning, you. Did you sleep well? Oh, is that for me? Ta very much,” Leonard says, sitting up in bed, face lighting up at the tea. “You’re a revelation.”

“Well, I don’t like to toot my own horn, you know.”

Leonard’s face is rosy with sleep, and he needs a shave.

Daniel kisses the corner of his mouth as he hands over the mug.

“Come here,” Leonard says, hooking his arm around Daniel’s waist, careful not to spill the tea on the bedspread. “Come here, darling, do.”

-

Dawn breaks over the fields as Len ambles cross-country to the Vicarage.

He loves me! He rejoices in the silver grass, reflecting the fresh day, trees gazing at their new shadows. He loves me, he _loves_ me!

Leonard has nothing to give to the morning but a prayer- O imperfect son, thou who held John as beloved- thankful, that love could at last find him, and make its harsh and glorious light known.

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Voluntarily and in a safe environment, Leonard reveals that his father used to hit him, though the extent of this is left deliberately unclear  
> Cool thanks guys!! I'm [@meryton-etc](https://meryton-etc.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. come talk!


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